Oriental assembly

ORIENTAL ASSEMBLY

engage the Arabs, unknowing, in such hazard*
I risked the fraud, on my conviction that Arab
help was necessary to our cheap and speedy
victory in the East, and that better we win and
break our word than lose.

The dismissal of Sir Henry McMahon con-
firmed my belief in our essential insincerity: but
I could not so explain myself to General Wingate
while the war lasted, since I was nominally under
his orders, and he did not seem sensible of how
false his own standing was. The only thing
remaining was to refuse rewards for being a
successful trickster and, to prevent this unpleasant-
ness arising, I began in my reports to conceal
the true stories of things, and to persuade the
few Arabs who knew to an equal reticence. In
this book also, for the last time, I mean to be my
own judge of what to say.

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